


The Doctor

by stupidmuse_hatesme



Series: What If [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Fanfiction, M/M, Pre-Slash, Undercover, black ops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidmuse_hatesme/pseuds/stupidmuse_hatesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I went to war to save people, and learned how to kill. I left the war because of an accident, but the war didn't leave me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted to my livejournal at stupidmuse.livejournal.com  
> Thanks muchly to my beta lizzlie for working on this monster with me!  
> This was my first fic delving into the idea that maybe John Watson was just as brilliant as Sherlock and was more than just a medic and a soldier in the war. The look in his eyes when he shot the cabbie for Sherlock just screamed "experience" and in more of a cold-blooded way than shooting other young soldiers on the field would give you. Looking back on it, I'm not sure I wrote him as more bad-ass than he already is, but at least I gave it a try ;)

In a tent, in a camp, in a dusty desert in Afghanistan, there is a man. This man sits atop his camp bed in that tent in the desert, alone, and focuses very intently on his task. Knees spread awkwardly, his broad hands cradle an item gently between them, his brow furrowed in concentration. The Browning High-Power 9mm is a comforting weight in his hands. Cool, heavy, solid. It comes apart like a puzzle underneath his stubby yet dexterous fingers. He curls a leg up on his bed, turning, and places each piece of his gun on the blanket. The magazine comes out first, which he lays to the far side for last. A small screwdriver pushes out pieces holding the grip together and everything goes smoothly from there.

He's removing the springs and inspecting the moving parts when the light shifts, signaling someone lifting the tent flap.

“Captain Watson,” someone says, but the doctor doesn't look up.

He can tell by the tone of voice that it isn't a question and that whoever it is knows full well who he is.

“Yes,” his hands move assuredly over his pistol, or at least the body of it that's left. He puffs air into crevices, searching out insidious dust, and reaches without looking for the bottle of solvent to lubricate the parts. The man stands in the doorway of the tent, flap lifted, and observes him, but the doctor doesn't even twitch. His gun might be in pieces, but he's got a knife in both boots and his SA-80 rifle  
on the cot beside him. He doesn't figure he'll need them.

“A good decision, Captain Watson.” The voice seems full of good humor. “It would be...inadvisable for you to make any sudden moves.” The man lets the flap fall behind him, and the bright light is cut off. Dim light glows through dusty plastic window panels, but the bulk of things are lit by an old and flickering fluorescent strip hanging from the ceiling. It glints off the soldier's gun as his fingers clean the sections of his gun with a soft rag.

The doctor looks up at the well-dressed man leaning on an umbrella and blinks only once. “Shall I leave this here, then?” he asks, but lays the remainder of his gun and his cleaning supplies to the side without waiting for an answer. He stands smoothly and without fanfare, sweeping down his fatigues with strong and sure hands.

The man nods, smiling a slow and dangerous smile. “And your knives, if you will.”

He's of good height. Auburn hair cut short in the fashion that tells John he mostly does it so that he doesn't need to worry about care, and that he needs to look good at his job. His suit is understated, and surprisingly dustless for the terrain, and he wears it well; as though he lounges about his house on his days off in it.

Posh, then.

John nods amiably and bends to pull a knife from each boot. He doesn't fear baring his neck to this man; he could be across the tent with his hands around the politician's neck before he could attempt anything.

He tucks his knives under his pillow and straightens.

“Very good,” the man says coolly. “I'll let you keep the one on your back, since you nearly got it by me.” He turns and pushes the tent flap to the side with the umbrella , his broad back a perfect target for said knife. He turns his head to smile mildly, but with a hint of smugness, at the soldier. “Coming?”

The doctor steps forward without a word. Of course he does: no one ever realizes that he keeps a third knife. The only thing that would impress him more would be if he noticed...

“The cord around your boot will stay there, of course.”

Watson allows a smile to flit across his face. “Yes,” he agrees noncommittally.

“Fantastic,” the man drawls.

 _Upper middle class,_ the doctor decides. _Sedentary, only can be budged from his desk for something important._ His steps don't falter, but his mind does. _Am I something important?_

“You might be, Captain. You might be.”

Said doctor doesn't even pause before getting into the back seat of the conspicuously black, conspicuously shiny, and conspicuously _government_ car.

“All right, then.” Watson says agreeably, settling onto the leather seat.

The man smiles, follows Watson into the car, and shuts the door behind him.

“Dr. John Watson,” he begins, propping his umbrella between his feet and grasping it with both hands, “Do you prefer that over Captain? No matter, you are a doctor at heart, I believe, and you seem to be just the man for whom I have been searching.” He sits on the leather seat next to the doctor as though it is a throne and makes the doctor feel plain and scruffy.

He self-consciously makes sure that there is a full seat between himself and the other man, then assuredly meets his gaze. “I'll take your word for it,” he replies, squaring his shoulders and sitting up straight.

“Do you think you ought to?” The man peers at him.

“No,” the doctor says, shortly. “But I will until you give me reason to do otherwise.”

The man laughs and Watson is almost surprised.

“Very good, doctor. Very good.” He offers a hand at last. “You may call me Mycroft, Dr. Watson.”

“Please,” the doctor replies. “Call me John.”

Mycroft smiles like a lazy lion.

“I believe that there is an officer passing secrets to the other side, sensitive secrets...”

“And you need a soldier to find out.”

It's not a question.

Mycroft tilts his head. “I need another officer to do whatever is necessary to protect Queen and Country.”

“You want me to kill him,” John says bluntly.

“Whatever is necessary,” Mycroft repeats. “Are you unwilling?”

John heaves a sigh. “Why do you believe that I could do that?”

“Let us just pretend that you don't secret weapons on your person like most would handkerchiefs, and let me ask you this: do you believe that you can?”

John frowns. “Of course.”

Mycroft smiles and spreads his hands expansively, leaning his umbrella against the seat next to him. “Well, there you are.”

John scowls outright. “Are you telling me that you believe I can do this because _I_ believe I can?”

“You are a very capable man, Dr. Watson. You are unusually aware of your own capabilities. If you say you can, there is no doubt.”

“Wouldn't anyone say that they could? Boasting, trying to look good and all that rot? I could be doing that too, I hope you realize.”

Crow lines crinkle in silent laughter around Mycroft's eyes. “It's a sign of your good character that you honestly believe what you believe.”

“If that was supposed to make sense, then you fell quite short.”

“Au contraire, docteur.” Mycroft murmurs. “We both know that is not true.”

“It's easier to believe that I am normal, than it is to pretend that I am,” John says reluctantly.

Mycroft's face smooths into solemnity. “Wouldn't you rather not have to do either?”

“Oh God, yes.” John says. He looks shocked for a moment, ready to bolt, then sinks back into the seat. “God. Yes.”

“You'll be an independent agent,” Mycroft warns. “No team, no back up. You get into trouble, you get yourself out of it. Ne comprenez-vous?”

“Oui. Je vous comprends parfaitement.” (1)

Mycroft smiles. “Excellent.”

 

~~

When Dr. John Watson lies on top of his bed that night, fully dressed, his eyes close and he slips into a peaceful sleep. His mind is calm, his dreams are clear. In the morning he rises before his bunkmates and tucks away all of his weapons about his person and into his rucksack. When he bends to pull clothing from his larger pack to put in his small one, his dog tags fall from his shirt with a clatter and swing freely for a moment before he straightens. He sits heavily on his bed and draws the chain over his head.

Dr. John H. Watson. Captain.

He crumples the tags, chain and all, into his other hand, then shoves them into a cargo pocket on the side of his trouser leg. Soon, he knows, he'll never see them again.

He doesn't have many possessions, just clothing, weapons, and a couple of books. A dog-eared paperback of Oliver Twist fits easily in a pocket, but he pauses at his hardbound book of poetry. Oliver might be dog-eared but it's dirty and smudged enough to reveal next to nothing fingerprint-wise.

The poetry, on the other hand, has his very distinctive handwriting in the margins.

He runs his calloused fingertips over the cloth-bound cover and frowns for a moment. _For now,_ he decides, and tucks it into his rucksack. _If it proves a liability, I'll chuck it later._

“Men cannot conceive the wonders of the world,” he murmurs, “Until the world conceives of him”

He leaves the tent without a backwards glance.

~~

The mole is a joke. Well, not literally. He is feeding secrets to the enemy, but any old Joe Blow with the capability of giving someone a Chinese burn could have gotten a confession out of the traitorous officer.

For John Watson, it takes even less.

He is “officially” transferred to the camp where the officer is stationed, if by officially you mean that Dr. John H. Watson's name disappears and a newly born Jack Willows walks unassumingly up to Major Jackson at a new camp.

“Hullo,” John says quietly, offering a hand and shaking the officer's with all the politeness of a typical Englishman. Then he steps back and salutes. “Lieutenant Willows, sir.”

The man's eyes graze him from top to bottom, then they land on a particular patch on John's shoulder. “You're a medic?”

“A GP before I joined up, sir,” he agrees, and the lie about being a normal, forgettable GP instead of a surgeon comes easily. “Since trained as a medical officer.”

He's neither relaxed, cocky, nor stiff. He's normal. Utterly normal and forgettable.

Major Jackson has already forgotten about him.

“Welcome aboard,” he's told, then is escorted to the medical tent by a private as the colonel strides away. As a new man, it's just easier to give him a cot in Hospital, which is fine by him. It means there is no one to account for his comings and goings.

~~

Two weeks and he's invisible. He's not a buddy, or a stranger: he is just someone the eyes drift over without seeing. He stays out of the field because, apparently, Mycroft wants him to stay out of the field. Which is fine with him. It's also fine with the soldiers, because he quickly proves that he can efficiently handle anything they approach him with once they return to camp.

“Private...” John greets as a young man enters the hospital tent.

“Reynolds, sir. Private Reynolds.”

John allows a small smile to creep across his face and gestures the boy forward. “I'm just a lowly Lieutenant, Reynolds. Willows. Jack Willows.”

Reynolds offers his injured hand, which Watson grasps, prodding it gently, and allows himself to be steered to a cot. He sits down upon quiet urging from the doctor.

“What happened?”

“Was tinkering with a machine, got caught in a small place.”

John tsks and releases the hand. “It'll need anesthetic.”

“All right,” Reynolds says agreeably. “I'm not afraid of needles or anything.”

John treats the soldier in silence, going through the same old motions, before Reynolds breaks it.

“You're not just a medic,” he comments, almost offhandedly.

“I'm just a GP,” John deflects. “Trained at Barts.”

“The Major,” the boy blurts, looking away and blushing. “He likes to drink after a skirmish. Late. On the edge of the compound.”

John doesn't even pause in wrapping the hand. “Why are you telling me?”

The boy shrugs, still looking away. “Thought you should know. Am I done?”

John studies the hand and bandages, then nods. “Yes, you are.”

“Good luck, doc.”

When Reynolds leaves, he stands up with a sigh. He's just lucky it was a good kid that put the pieces together. Or maybe it's the kid who is lucky.

As the tent flap swings, he replaces his knife into his wrist sheath and starts thinking.

 _Likes to get hammered, eh? We'll see how this pans out, then perhaps I'll pass Reynolds' name on..._

~~

With each step through the shadows of the compound, John Watson's stature grows. Not literally, but his quiet strength is no longer so quiet, and he confidently strides, soundlessly, to his mark. No longer is he the normal, quiet, unassuming medic who rarely leaves his tent. No. Now he is the Doctor. Cool, confident, and indeed catching sight of the elusive Major at a small fire.

John steps into the flickering light, and two bleary eyes raise up to peer at him. Dark shadows ring them, as though the Major has lost sleep, and a wordless growl snarls its pleasure at the back of John's mind. _Good. He deserves it._

“Hullo there, mate,” the Major slurs, evidently gone enough that he doesn't bother standing. He squints as John crouches on the other side of the small flames. “Do I know you?”

“I'm the Doctor.”

“A doctor? You here to join me, doctor?”

“How many died in the skirmish today?”

“Five,” the Major replies promptly. “Five poor buggers died today.”

“Five poor buggers died because of you,” John says quietly. “Five soldiers went out there, not knowing they didn't stand a chance, and it's all your fault.”

The man's hands shake, and he clasps his bottle of whiskey closer. “Yes,” he whispers. “Yes.”

“Yet you sit out here and drink every time. Are you guilty?”

“Yes.” His knuckles are white.

John prods at the crackling embers with a stick. “Then why did you do it? Why do you continue to pass on information?”

“I don't know,” he murmurs hoarsely, devastated and trapped in his own mind.

“Run,” John stares over the fire into the drunk officer's eyes. “Run as fast as you can, and hope I can't catch you.”

The Major stumbles to his feet, eyes wild. “Is it over?”

John stands as well, drawing the machete out of its sheath on his back.

“Not yet,” he promises.

The Major bolts.

John can hear him charging wildly like a mad bull, stumbling and tripping in the darkness. John kicks sand over the campfire, and tilts his head to both sides, cracking his neck. He follows at a gentle lope, treading silently over the uneven ground. In the moonlight, he tracks the Major farther and farther away from the camp. Soon he hears a gun's report, and a scream. John pauses, listening. The gun doesn't fire again. He follows the signs: broken plants, scuffed dirt, divots, footprints, all at a leisurely pace. A tiger stalking through the darkness, he finally finds the Major's body.

Wide eyes stare straight up, frightened and glassy. John reaches for the officer's carotid artery, but already knows what he will find: no pulse.

He replaces the machete, deliberately tears off the insignia identifying him as medic, and strides away. Back at the camp, he carefully stows away that part of himself. Less intensity of the eyes, relax the features, walk less gracefully, turn down the menace. When he spots the sentry, he's again the small, mousy medic whose name no one remembers.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

“Sergeant, sergeant!” he cries out, breaking into a run and gasping as though he is in distress.

“Yes, soldier?” The sentry turns towards him calmly, and takes in his frantic state.

“The Major ran! He was drunk and bolted straight out of camp!”

The soldier's eyes sharpen as John stoops, hands on knees, panting as though he is out of breath. “I heard report,” he continues. “You don't think...”

“Shit,” the soldier swears. “I'll get a team. Good work, soldier.”

In the fuss, no one notices John, pack on his back, walk right out of the camp.

Yeah, he can do this.

~~

“You've been to Afghanistan, Mycroft,” a voice floats down the hall from the sitting room.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says with a sigh, depositing his umbrella in its stand and turning on the hall light. “I gave you a key,” he calls. “Must you insist upon breaking in? One of these days you'll be in disguise and my men will take you out.” He waltzes down the hall, carpet muffling his footsteps, and loosens his tie as he spots his brother.

“I should hope not,” Sherlock says with disdain from his sprawl over Mycroft's favourite chair. “A shooting in Kensington Palace Gardens? God forbid.” A cigarette dangles from his fingertips and ash flutters onto the expensive Persian rug.

Mycroft purses his lips.

“I wouldn't be very good if I got caught. Besides, I lost your key.”

“You threw it away,” Mycroft says as he slides his coat off and drapes it over his arm. “Into the bin. And then I gave it back to you.”

“Directly after, I accidentally dropped it into the garbage disposal. Oops!”

“How many copies did you make first?” Mycroft asks wryly.

Sherlock twitches the smoking cigarette at him dismissively. “Irrelevant. How was Afghanistan? You have a lovely sunburn.”

Mycroft turns and walks away from Sherlock to his bedroom. “Don't be so smug, I sent you an email telling you where I was going so that you wouldn't dig.”

“I deleted it,” Sherlock pronounces smugly.

“After you read it.”

“Semantics.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft calls from his bedroom as he leans into his closet. “Why are you here, exactly?”

“I'm bored, Mycroft. Yesterday I fetched a puppy out of a tree.”

“Shouldn't it have been a kitten?” Mycroft muses, unbuttoning his shirt in the doorway of his bedroom and raising a skeptical eyebrow in Sherlock's direction. He knows that Sherlock's lazy sprawl with his head and shoulders hanging over the side of the chair is actually a carefully honed technique that allows him to see into Mycroft's bedroom. At least it proves Sherlock's paying attention to him, Mycroft supposes.

“A puppy,” Sherlock repeats derisively. “I suspect someone hid it to give me a,” here he pauses dramatically and uses over-exaggerated air-quotes “'Case.'”

Mycroft chuckles and ducks back into the bedroom.

“This morning it took me less than five minutes after I entered my client's house to figure out that the husband is having a dalliance with the maid and that's where the wife's precious jewels disappeared off to.”

“Oh, dear.” Mycroft's socked feet pad down the hall and he reappears in casual trousers, sans his tie and waistcoat. “Did you break it to her gently?” He tugs a soft jumper in a light brown with a v-neck over his shirt and carefully straightens his sleeves.

Sherlock watches him closely, nearly upside down, and his brows draw together in frustration. “I didn't have to. We stumbled across said dalliance whilst she was giving me a tour of the house.”

“Why did she even call upon you?”

“Why indeed.”

“Tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Mummy would be proud.”

“Re~flexes!” Sherlock sings out, taking a final drag from his cigarette and stubbing it out on the carpet. They cease speaking until Mycroft returns with a tea-service and bullies Sherlock into sitting up properly.

“You'd like something to do,” Mycroft extrapolates, pleased. He sits on the settee across from Sherlock, adding a sugar to his tea and stirring the steaming cup with a tiny silver spoon.

“Not a job with you,” Sherlock qualifies quickly, shifting in his seat and cradling the tea cup and saucer carefully. “If I never have to work in an office, it will be too soon.”

“You could be a private detective for the wealthy.”

“I'm a private detective for all classes,” he dismisses. “Last week I was given a ham for finding someone's lost child.”

“Was it a nice ham?”

Sherlock grimaces. “No, it wasn't even cured yet.”

Mycroft smirks. “Barts would hire you as a researcher in a heartbeat.”

“Boring. I don't want my interests to be restricted.”

“They offered you a teaching position as well, I understand.”

“People are idiots. It doesn't matter if a genius teaches them, they're still idiots.”

Mycroft nods.

“You seem to take shameless advantage of the labs at Barts, regardless.”

“Occasionally I throw them a bone,” Sherlock explains. “I found an antidote for something or other last month.”

“I saved the clipping from the newspaper for Mummy.”

Sherlock looks up from his cup of tea, surprised. “It was in the paper? No, never mind, unimportant.” He sips quietly. “What about your dog, isn't he with the murder division?”

“Gregory? Yes, he's with CID at the Yard. And he's not my dog, Sherlock. I don't have him in my pocket, or whatever quaint colloquialism you'd care to use to imply that I've bought him off: he's my lover.”

Sherlock flaps a delicate hand at his brother. “Yes, yes, emotional mush, same concept. Absolutely boring. His _job_ however, that's what I find interesting. I see dead bodies in the morgue all the time.” Then he leans forward eagerly. “But a _crime scene_ ,” he breathes reverently. “That would be _brilliant._ ”

Mycroft scowls and leans back in his chair. “You wish me to lean on my lover to allow you access to crime scenes as if they are playgrounds? Absolutely not.”

“Just think about it,” Sherlock jumps up to crouch on the chair, hands clasped in front of him. “Murders are _interesting._ Do you really want me to be bored?”

Mycroft gazes at his brother, taking in his manic eyes, pale skin, and shaking hands. “Are you high?”

Sherlock frowns. “How plebeian a term. I prefer 'stimulated.'”

“Have you taken a _stimulant_ , Sherlock?” Mycroft demands.

“No,” Sherlock responds petulantly, sinking back into the chair. “Not right this second. I'm not addicted, you know.”

“Of course not,” Mycroft placates automatically, his mind churning busily. “I'll consider speaking with Gregory if you give them up, Sherlock.”

“Give what up? My toes? My informants? My clients?”

“Don't be coy.”

“I have to give up drugs for you to even speak to him? That hardly seems a fair deal.”

“Do you dismiss my persuasive abilities?” Mycroft interjects smoothly.

Sherlock pauses, frowning at the cigarette butt on the rug. “Must I give up smoking as well?”

“No, but I am sure nicotine patches would be an excellent substitute.”

Sherlock springs to his feet. “You'll speak to...'Gregory,' then? If I have to investigate another domestic affair then so help me...”

“Yes,” Mycroft soothes. “If you cease 'shooting up',” Mycroft pronounced the term disdainfully, “I'll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

And then Sherlock is gone.

~~

 

John has been at this current camp for two weeks now, with no sign as to why he is here. There don't seem to be any insurgents, or fishy groups in the area, or really any problems at all. In fact, it rarely sees any action and he gets the odd feeling that he has just been placed out of the way to stay out of trouble.

John isn't a stupid man, but when he finally receives a small slip of paper from a messenger, it takes him a moment to puzzle out. He thinks it over as he strikes a match, lights the paper, and watches it burn to ash in the sand outside his tent. He had already figured out that this crap placement has been a test of sorts. To see how patient he is, how trustworthy, whether he can keep his head in a boring situation. He can, but he doesn't like being manipulated. The message he has just received, though, more than makes up for that. It's ostensibly from Mycroft, if he judges by the cryptic wording it bears, and is interesting as well. _A friend of our mother is in danger. Find it._ He decides the note refers to a friend of the Queen. He tilts his head, considering. _A relative? Perhaps someone in the limelight currently?_ Whoever it is, it's clear to John that this is the most monumental mission he has yet been given. If he's interpreting things correctly. He can't help but feel uneasy. He's spied on dignitaries, defused bombs meant to take out royalty, rescued operatives, led soldiers on impossible extermination missions...

But the carefully crafted message, the subject, and the unsaid threat ruffle his feathers in a nameless way. His hand twitches for his knife, then falls to his side.

But for Queen and Country, he'll take this mission.

~~

“Not even Queen and Country,” John snarls to himself, staggering out of a rusty warehouse, “Could get me to go back in that building.”

He had tracked down the sect who planned on kidnapping the friend of the Queen, and found out several things altogether.

One. The group was larger than he had thought. He had expected to be able to waltz in, take out the boss, and as the lackeys ran around like panicked chickens, pick them off one by one. Instead, he dropped straight into a hornets nest of over 20 angry men.

Not good odds.

Two. At least one of them was a crack shot. His left arm is now entirely useless, and hangs at his side. Two bullets hit home and he'll have to dig them out soon.

He pulls his pack around to his front, rummages for a grenade, pulls the pin and tosses it over his shoulder towards the warehouse. Where it lands doesn't matter: he trailed petrol inside the rusty metal hulk so the whole thing is guaranteed to go up.

Three. When the grenade goes off, he does indeed feel the heat of flames as the building goes up like a torch. The surprise is that a second explosion rips apart the whole building and slams into him.

 _So that's what those kegs were..._

His last thought is that at least he “defused” things before they got the Greek. Whatever that's worth.

~~

When he awakens, he's face down in a nearby alley, the roar of the warehouse behind him. The wail of sirens approach in the distance and he can hear shouts nearby of frantic locals approaching the fire. He groans, and twitches each of his muscles at a time, taking as good an account as he can with his face practically buried in a rubbish pile.

His arm is nearly useless, screaming with pain and dead from blood loss. His fingers twitch at his command, but only reluctantly. His back was scorched by the blast, his shirt torn away, and might have shrapnel embedded in it, judging by the abominable stinging when he flexes his shoulder blades. Questing fingers find a gash and large chunk of shrapnel in his right thigh, but other than that and some minor scratches and abrasions, he seems relatively uninjured.

A cut on his forehead is streaming blood onto the ground, so John heaves himself onto hand and knees. His entire body screams in displeasure as he awkwardly twists his pack from his front to his back, but he kneels up and smears dust across his head wound, a rudimentary clotting technique.

He has more things to worry about than dirt in a superficial wound.

John opens his eyes, uses a finger to track, and looks up towards the sun. He doesn't seem to have a concussion, so heaves himself to his feet. He's a little dizzy but the blood loss accounts for that. He turns but can't see the warehouse, or the emergency crews from his position, so he walks away.

No one expects someone to walk calmly away from a catastrophe.

He still has two knives strapped to his thighs, his garrote, and his Browning in a shoulder holster under his tattered shirt, which he keeps on only because the front hides his gun and he needs to get out of here.

Fast.

They'll figure out it's not an accident, soon, and then they'll lock down the city.

He stumbles down the alley, good hand trailing against the wall beside him, in search of defenseless laundry.

He's in luck. A few corners away from where he woke he finds a line strung overhead. He laboriously drags himself up on a bin, then snatches a sheet and shirt off the line. Sliding awkwardly off the bin, he leans against it as he struggles out of his pack and shoves the sheet into it. His shirt he shrugs out of, letting it pool at his feet, and replaces it with the long sleeved shirt he stole. He hopes the dark color won't show the blood from his back or his arms, as he can't afford to treat them yet. Not until he gets out of the city. He then steps on his discarded shirt, bends over, pulls a knife from his boot, and proceeds to crudely slice it up by dragging the knife through the thin cloth.. The first strip goes around his head in imitation of a sweatband, the next he ties tightly above the shrapnel in his thigh, gritting his teeth and hissing in pain, the rest he stuffs into the pack with the sheet. Attached to his belt is a small first aid kit, and inside it is some walnut oil, which he uses two fingers to rub into his face and neck. The residue he grinds into his palms then massages more onto the back of his hands and halfway up his forearms.

With his skin dark, no on will look twice at him.

From his pack he withdraws a cap, which covers his blond hair. He carefully threads his injured arm through the strap of his pack, then lets his hand rest in his trouser pocket to keep it from being jostled. Satisfied with his disguise, he leisurely strides away from the alley.

The city is a maze, especially the slums that he finds himself in. One minute he can be in the dirtiest and most disturbing area, and the next be strolling by the poshest houses he's ever seen. John only ducks his head, the brim of his cap shadowing his face, but silently shakes his head at the horrid state of this South American country. He hopes he never has to visit it again.

Even in his dazed and dizzy state, he navigates the twisting alleys and streets without pause, eventually coming to a beaten up car he parked in the outskirts days before. He fumbles the keys, unused to unlocking things with his right hand, but eventually gets the door open. Starting the ignition nearly stumps him, but eventually he pulls out and drives slowly down the dirty street.

As he leaves the city, he greets the guards flawlessly in their dialect, producing fake papers when asked. They peer in the car and at him, but somehow he passes muster. They wave him on after a few brisk questions in Portuguese, which he thankfully knows how to answer, and he holds in a relieved sigh.

He's good, but he travels so often that he mostly knows only common phrases in local dialects. He's nowhere near fluent.

He drives away from the city, striking for the countryside. At a random point on the dusty country road, he parks the car to the side, leaving the keys on the seat. Whoever finds it is welcome to it. He stumbles off the road over the grassy plain, heading for a point he found when scouting days before. When, hours later, he finds the abandoned shack he marked as a possible hideaway, he shuts the door, and collapses straight onto the floor.

He sleeps soundly through the night.

In the morning, he wakes with a fever.

Cursing, he squints in the bright sunlight streaming through the basic slatted walls.

“Infection,” he mutters.

He drags himself to the sleeping pallet, piled with musty old straw, assuming that abandoned means no fleas, and struggles out of the purloined shirt. The cap and strip of cloth about his head go next, and he sets to tearing the fresh sheet into long strips. He has to tear with one hand and his mouth, but he manages well enough. The well outside has a little clean water, which he brings inside in a rusty metal pail.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

He might have spent the last few years wandering the countryside for this “Mycroft,” but first and foremost: he is a doctor.

He treats each wound one at a time, starting with the less serious first. Dozens litter his body, and even through the haze of his fever he treats each one.

On a tiny fire in the center of the hut, he boils his water in a small clay bowl he found on the floor. As he boils each small batch, he dips into another bowl of warm water and gently washes the blood and sand from his body. He treats his back before his shoulder and thigh, soaking a large cloth and gritting his teeth as he squeezes it over his shoulder straight onto his back.

He screams.

“Shit!”

There isn't much that he can reach back there, but he does his best to wash the grime away before wrapping his torso tightly.

He confronts his thigh next. There's a large chunk of metal embedded in it straight through his cargo pants, so he cuts a hole around it to make sure the metal isn't caught on the fabric, then tugs his trousers off. He balls up some remnants of his shirt, stuffs them in his mouth, and yanks out the shrapnel with his bare hand before he loses his courage.

He yells behind the gag.

With the small set of tweezers from his belt kit he pulls out other small pieces. Stitching up the hole, he wraps his whole upper thigh in gauze before binding it with strips from the sheet. John wriggles back into his worse-for-wear trousers, lacking anything else. Fighting off fever chills is sending stinging sweat down his shoulder and into other uncovered scrapes.

He shucks both of his straight blades, laying them beside the pallet, and fishes out a smaller folding blade from his abandoned boots. With a flick, he opens it, and sterilizes it in the hottest part of the flames, dousing it in peroxide after for good measure.

Gag still in his mouth, he turns to his shoulder, peeling off the makeshift bandage, and lays the flat of the blade on his skin. Taking a deep breath, he digs the tip under the first bullet.

He wakes on the floor, the glinting blade in the dirt in front of his nose.

He groans, spitting out the gag.

“Let's try that again, shall we?”

He shoves himself up, aware that the wound is bleeding again as his vision swims and dims.

But the first bullet lies on the floor as well as the knife. He huffs a laugh in relief.

“Good lad,” he tells himself. “One more to go, mate.”

He holds onto consciousness this time, barely, but blood starts gushing out of his arm so fast he can feel his strength waning. Fumbling for one of his larger knives, he unsheathes it and shoves it into the fire. He props it in the flames and leaves it there, then shoves the gag back into his mouth, and cleans the wound as best as he can. First he uses a bowl of water dumped straight on, then the rest of the little bottle of peroxide.

He clamps his teeth down and huffs through it, but stays awake.

He mops up the bloody water, trying to keep his arm as still as he can, then grabs the knife from where he left it in the fire. He closes his eyes, swallows, then cauterizes the wound.

The sizzling sound and smell of burnt flesh bring to mind meat on the grill, a comparison that will infect his dreams and waking life for months to come.

~~

John fades in and out of consciousness for two days, judging by his brief glimpses of the sun, subsisting on only water. On the third day, Mycroft appears like the devil himself.

John is just a bit too fuzzy to see what's wrong with that contrast, so he lets it stand.

“John,” Mycroft frowns down at him. He tsks.

John knows that he is a wreck. His vision is out of focus, sweat pours out of him faster than he can drink water, leaving his mouth cottony and dry, he's shaking constantly, now with the occasional full-on shudder, and he's curled up on a dirt floor without any covering.

 _I must look a sight._

“Yes,” Mycroft agrees. “You do.”

He hooks his umbrella onto his arm, and steps closer to the doctor. “Do you think you can stand, doctor?”

“Infection,” he chatters. “Bullet wound. Didn't cauterize in time.”

Mycroft's face pinches as he gazes around the hut, taking in the abandoned knives, burnt out fire, rusty pail, and scattered first-aid supplies.

“You'll be taken care of, doctor.”

John's heart chills. “I did it,” he gasps. “I stopped the sect. No innocents were hurt.”

“Yes, you did.” Mycroft frowns, thinking. “Ah, yes. Don't worry, good doctor. You're being taken to hospital. When I say taken care of, I mean it.” He pauses. “Do you still trust me?” he wonders aloud.

“You haven't given me any reason no to,” John readily replies, but shivers harder.

“You have nothing to worry about, doctor. You did your job very well. Now it's time for you to go home.”

Mycroft bends down and lifts John up by his armpits, allowing John to lean on him heavily as they stumble outside to a helicopter.

“Home?” John wonders. “I don't have a home.”

“You, John Watson,” Mycroft admits quietly, “Are a man in whom I have a great amount of faith. You will find your way.”

As they load him up into the helicopter, he deeply regrets how wrong this mission went. He made a mistake, and now he's broken. Mycroft can't use a broken man who makes bad choices. He's doing the right thing by sending him back. But there's nothing and no one there for him. His parents are dead, Harry has Clara, and his “job” precludes any army buddies he might meet again in the homeland.

He has none.

This is his life. The danger, the intrigue, the protecting of his country: he lives for this. This is what he looked for when he became a surgeon and did his residency in Accident and Emergency. He's useless without war.

“John. _John_.” Mycroft insists, leaning over the gurney and gripping his right hand. “You are the least useless man I have ever met. You will find a purpose.”

John chuckles mirthlessly as an IV is threaded into his arm and a sedative is prepared.

“I have no purpose in the real world.”

As they inject the sedative, and unconsciousness floods over him, he dimly hears Mycroft murmur.

“You will find one, John. I'll make sure of it.”

~~

When he awakens, Mycroft and the operatives are gone, he is in a medical hospital back Home, and the nurse refers to him as Major Watson.

 _Lovely, get shot in the shoulder, get sent home like a recalcitrant child, and receive a promotion._

When the curious nurse asks how he got injured, he just says “I got shot.”

She doesn't ask about his thigh wound, nor the botched cauterizing job. In fact, after his curt answer, she stops talking to him at all.

He tells himself that it doesn't bother him.

The hospital is dull. The people are dull. In the beginning, he presses the button for the morphine every time he has enough of the dullness and slips away into a drug induced stupor. Eventually they cotton on, and from...somewhere, a laptop that is apparently “his” appears.

He's never bought himself a computer before, but he won't look a gift horse in the mouth as long as someone wants to claim it's his.

He's gently prodded by the staff psychologist to “write about his experiences,” but instead he plays plenty of Solitaire. When he gets bored of that, he switches to Spider Solitaire.

“The next step before we release you,” the elderly male psychiatrist says, it's Dr. Edwards, he thinks, “Is for you to decide what you would like to do out in the real world.”

“If I said I wanted to be a bum and live on the streets,” John tests, “What would you do?”

Dr. Edwards smiles. “We would give you pamphlets detailing hostels for you to sleep at, kitchens to eat at, and various charities that would help you out. But you must know that you will receive a pension from the Army, John, although it might not be much. So unless living on the streets is your heart's desire, it doesn't have to be an option.” He leans forward. “Is that what you want?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“Good.”

The silence stretches, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock. John refuses to look up at it and let the quack make another note about his anxiety or impatience.

“I _am_ a doctor...” John ventures tentatively. “A surgeon. I can still fix people.”

“We'll see,” Dr. Edwards says.

That's what his parents always used to say when he wanted something they couldn't afford. It isn't very reassuring.

~~

“Goddammit,” John's temper finally snaps. “Why can't I do this?”

He wants to throw the ball at the physical therapist's sympathetic face, but instead he drops it to the floor. “Why can't I do this?” he repeats quietly, putting the therapist on the spot.

“You just need to practice and get your strength up,” the young man soothes. “The more you do this, the easier it will be.”

“I don't really think—”

“I think you need to speak to your psychologist about that,” the man interjects kindly but firmly. “Not me.” He stands quickly. “Just keep squeezing the ball, it will help.”

John wants to growl under his breath, but he knows he has his irrational temper under control, stuffed under the plain facade of John Watson. Also, he's aware that it's just not the thing to do.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

John wheels his chair to the door where a nurse takes hold and pushes him down the hall. He resents that he doesn't have enough mobility or strength in his shoulder to even work a wheelchair. But he knows it will get better. He'll make it get better. John asks the nurse to stop outside the door, and puts his own hands on the wheels.

“I can get myself inside.”

She nods and walks away.

Taking a deep breath, he pushes the door in and rolls through.

“Hullo,” John says,

“Hello, Dr. Watson,” Edwards stands. “Let me get the door for you.”

“Thank you.”

John sits quietly until the other man has sat down, then speaks.

“There's something wrong.”

Edwards quirks a smile. “Not good at self-diagnosis?”

“I am a surgeon, not a psychologist. If I'm in here speaking to you, and not one of my peers, it has less to do with an injury than the mind.”

“We have reason to believe that your non-functioning leg is psychosomatic...”

~~

John hates his bedsit. He doesn't call it a flat, not even in his head, because that implies that it has space and is livable. It's small, boxy, and the green glow of the wallpaper adds a surrealism to his panted awakenings that make it difficult to pull him out of the grasps of his dreams.

What he hates even more is the look of pity on his sister's face the single time she saw it.

 _“You could stay with me,” Harry offers. “Until you get on your feet.”_

He dreams every night. Some nights he wakes with a silent scream, a red hot knife blazing behind his eyelids. Others, he wakes rejuvenated and ready for his next mission. Each and every time, however, he opens his eyes to sickly pale green walls and a throbbing leg that reminds him his previous life is far beyond his reach.

 _John pushes the hostage in front of him as they run through the office building._

 _“Go, go, go!” he whispers harshly. “Just round the corner!”_

 _He turns and shoots at a pursuer without slowing, then glances at his watch._

 _Five seconds._

 _“Fuck!”_

 _He springs forward, hauling at the other man and kicks the door open._

 _“Jump!”_

 _The building explodes behind them, pitching them away from the building—_ and John from his bed.

He lies on the floor as the sun comes up, not that he can see it in this nearly windowless hole in the wall, his head aching from his fall. His right hand creeps up to probe the bruise on his head, and finds it minor. He lets the appendage fall and his eyes slip shut.

All he sees are the backs of his eyelids.

He can't help but be grateful for the dim and veined view, and admires it for several moments.

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

“I have to get out of here,” he murmurs.

His body very reluctantly allows him to sit up, then drag himself up from the floor. He sits stiffly on the single bed, and grips his aching leg with a rough and grasping hand.

“The least useless man you have ever met, huh?” John reaches for his cane and stands with a groan. “Where are you now, Mycroft? Have you forgotten your pretty promises already?”

John knows that he is being unfair. He's been in hospital for many weeks, and in this bedsit for only two. He hasn't seen a psychologist since being discharged, though, for which he's glad. He suspects Mycroft is behind that. Despite his hatred for the profession, he knows what a professional would tell him: That he's got PTSD. That the PTSD is why he has nightmares, a tremor in his left hand, and a psychosomatic limp.

He also knows that's not true.

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

He doesn't wake frightened by his “nightmares.” He wakens panting in exhilaration. Excitement. Adrenaline pumps like fire through his veins.

He looks down at his left hand hanging limply at his side, and lifts it to look at it.

It is perfectly steady.

He drops it with a sigh.

“I just...I don't know where to go next.”

He does know, when he locks the door behind him, that he never wants to hear the cheap and sticky sound of that lock ever again.

~~

Boring. Absolutely boring. People are boring, shops are boring, and everything is _boring._

John stops in the middle of the sidewalk with a sigh, leaning upon his cane as strangers jostle him and continue blindly on their way along Brompton Road, focused only on their frivolous shopping.

“Stop! Thief!”

Three sets of footsteps thunder down the sidewalk, and, instinctively, John turns to look.

Two masked men barrel towards him, their spoils in their arms, and a red-faced shop keeper bellows from behind.

“Thief!”

John grins, and switches his cane to his left hand.

“Perfect,” he utters, with a vicious glint in his eyes.

The robbers have no idea what hits them.

~~

“You took them down with your cane,” the beat cop says flatly.

“Was that a question?” John asks mildly.

He's replaced his mellow Dr. John Watson persona, and stands patiently, almost amused, as the bobby frowns at him. The back room of the shop is very posh, and he looks around curiously as the policeman tries to stare him down. There are fluffy couches, rugs, hand-carved tables...Not what he was expecting in the back of a watch shop. _Must be the neighborhood_ , he guesses.

“Would you two gentlemen care to sit down?”

John and the cop turn to look at the hovering shop owner and John nods politely, ignoring how the overweight man sweating in his fancy suit stares pointedly at his cane.

“Yes, thank you.”

The nervous man putters off, satisfied with John's civilized response, but pauses long enough to make sure that John does sit down in an armchair. John leans back, spreading his legs in a lazy sprawl designed specifically to irk the policeman, and props his cane between his knees where it's still within his reach. A moment later, John and the cop still locked in a battle of wills, the shop owner returns.

“Excuse me,” he says politely. John looks up to see him carrying a tray of what appears to be a wine bottle and a finely crafted tumbler. “Would you like some water?”

With a grateful smile, John says yes. “That would be wonderful.”

The cop scowls.

John watches curiously as the man cracks the seal and pours the water into the tumbler as though it's a fine art and a wine to be savored. With a flourish, he's handed the glass.

“Thank you,” he repeats.

The man smiles, “No, thank you.”

John can see his nervousness flowing away, utterly comfortable with John sitting in the private sales room. The human mind is a machine of denial, the man will forget the vicious satisfaction on John's face with only minutes of interacting with Mellow John. The doctor in him can only marvel at man's ability to bury his head in the sand and ignore things.

“You'll need to come in and make a statement,” the policeman says eventually, resignedly.

John stands with a smile, the glass loosely cradled in his hand, and looks at the owner of the shop. “Thank you. For the water, I mean.”

“No,” the owner twitters. “Thank _you_. They would have gotten away with several thousand pounds if you hadn't...” he drops his gaze to the battered metal cane in John's hand, memory obviously flashing back.

“Ahem,” the policeman tucks his notepad into his pocket. “If you could...”

 _He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water._ (2)

“Yes, yes,” John agrees, draining the glass. “Thank you,” he says, yet again, as he hands it back.

“George Wilkins,” the owner of the shop replies. “You deserve a reward,” he wheedles.

“No, no,” John adjusts his grip on his cane and moves to follow the policeman. “No need. Right place, right time, that's all.”

“But!”

John waves and steps through the door. “Maybe someday I'll need a watch!” he replies.

The sounds of ticking retreat behind him as the door jangles shut.

“So,” he addresses the other man. “To the Yard, then?”

The policeman looks embarrassed, gaze flicking to a looming man standing next to the colourful police van containing the robbers. He seems to be the superior officer.

“I sorta need to go with...” he waves a hand, ineffectually trying to convey what his words fail at.

John nods sharply. “I'll just take the tube then,” he says as he firmly pushes down his impatience. “Yeah?”

“You'll need your identification,” the policeman responds, snapping back into a businesslike manner. “To get inside. I'll radio ahead and tell them to be expecting you so that you'll be let in. After you go through security, wait in reception and someone will come to collect you.” He waits for John's nod of assent, then strides briskly away.

John sighs.

But his grip is loose on his cane and his stance firm. He turns and walks away. He can give a statement that's worth his steady hand.

~~

The Yard isn't that far from the tube station, which is convenient, because as he takes the stairs out of the station, his leg starts to ache again. Gritting his teeth, he gamely drags himself up them, but has to use his cane much more than he likes. Mostly he's lucky that it's a lull and he isn't being shoved around like a ping pong ball on the stairs. Or smashed like a sardine in a can.

Either way, though, his ascent is dogged, and if anyone shoves or trips him he is going to beat them with a stick. Oh look, he has a cane. How convenient.

John moved steadily up Broadway, and New Scotland Yard was immediately in evidence. The tall steel and glass building entirely dominated the scene, not in height, but in length and grandeur. It stretches sideways across the block, at a different angle than the other buildings, and shines in the thin, gray, London light.

A police officer stands in front of the visitors entrance, garish in her yellow and orange vest, but John smiles at her politely nonetheless.

“Good afternoon,” he greets her.

“Your ID and letter please, sir,” she answers

He smiles. “I was a witness to a robbery this afternoon, on Brompton Road.” He fumbles his wallet out of his back pocket and thumbs out his license. “I've got this, but no letter.”

She checks it, checks her list, then hands back the card. “You were called in,” she says curtly, stepping to the side. “Go ahead and go inside.”

Her suspicious eyes follow him inside, but John only smiles. He thinks fiery and cranky women are interesting, even if they aren't exactly his type. He slowly walks down the short hall, his cane adding a third step, and pulls open the door. Inside is the security checkpoint, which he submits to in relatively good humor, his leg aching only a little bit. Once past the metal detectors he goes through a door into another room.

Footsteps sound out from another corridor.

“Honestly, Lestrade,” a deep voice rings out stridently. “You're cleverer than Anderson, you should be able to connect the dots.”

John slows a little bit, delaying the arrival at his destination that's on the other side of the next door.

A slower set of steps plod along behind the man quickly catching up to John. The doctor can tell that he is the one who speaks next, because his voice is low and slow, like his footsteps. “You tire me, Sherlock. Arsenic in the tea? That's how he died?”

“Tea service set out, man dead in arm chair, two tea cups.” The man billows past John, but the doctor continues with his ponderous and nearly nonexistent steps. The bobby at the door into the actual Yard eyes him with caution, but he ignores him. Instead, he sneaks a peek at the excitable man. He's tall, with dark curly hair, a purple scarf, and a long dark coat that swirls when he whirls around to look back at the man he's calling Lestrade.

“The girlfriend, though? She was in tears when she found out about him. Sherlock, come on, tell me what you know.”

John stops altogether and looks directly at the manic man hovering on the balls of his feet as though he might leap straight into the air for flight.

“Wrong. Nothing was girly, the whole tea set was all man, all his.”

“A boyfriend on the side?” Lestrade asks.

The man named Sherlock inflates, just about ready to burst, a smug and excited look on his face.

“The sister,” John blurts.

“What?” Sherlock demands sharply, intense eyes flickering over the plain doctor.

“No fripperies? It was a guest. Who would I trust to serve me tea? My sister.” John shrugs, standing steadfastly in front of the scarecrow standing thunderstruck in the middle of the room.

“Oh...my...” Sherlock breathes.

John steps around him, now intent on his destination.

“Wait!” The other man calls out.

John pauses, cane in midair.

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

“How did you know that?” the other man, Lestrade, demands.

John rolls his shoulders in a stiff shrug and takes another slow step. “Anyone would be able to figure it out...Detective Inspector...Lestrade, is it? I'm nothing special.” He reaches for the door and pauses again. “If you don't have this man on retainer already, you should,” he advises. “He's not nearly as stupid as the rest of the world, even if he is arrogant as a direct result.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock calls out as John pulls the door open.

“Ta,” he replies, and leaves them behind.

He's disturbed to realize that he has a warm smile on his face, and had one that whole time, without realizing it. He lets it slip away as he approaches the reception desk. “Hullo, I'm here to provide my statement about a robbery I witnessed?”

“Name?”

“I'm the Doctor,” he smiles, shaking his head. “I mean, I'm Doctor John Watson.”

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

“Righto.”

As his temporary identification tag is printed out and hung on a lanyard, he pictures the manic detective eying John as though he was soaking up everything about him and chuckles ruefully. He grips his cane tightly in his right hand for a moment, then clenches left hand into a fist.

It's as steady as a rock.

He doesn't expect to see the man ever again, but he can always hope.

 _“You will find one, John. I'm sure of it.”_

~~

The cursor blinks steadily on the blank page. It's mocking him, he's sure of it.

“Let's compromise, he said,” John grumbles, cracking his knuckles, “Write a blog, it'll be _good_ for you, he said. It's  my choice not to see a quack, why should I have to write instead?”

John steeples his fingers on the keyboard, and sighs.

 _My life is boring,_ he types.

And wonders when that became true.

It's been three days since the thwarted robbery and John has so many emails from Dr. Edwards in his inbox that he feels obliged to add at least one post to his blank blog. He hits the post button, and leans back heavily in his chair. The line pops up on his profile, and depresses him greatly.

“Am I drowning in normality?” he murmurs, “Or am I accepting it as reality?”

Unable to face the question, he stands with a heavy sigh and retreats to the kitchenette for some tea. He swears he can hear the cursor blinking behind him.

~~

A day later, John finds himself at his gifted laptop again. He has two emails. One from the quack, and another from his sister. He deletes both without reading them, but clicks over to his blog.

 _I met a man the other day,_ he begins, then pauses, his irrational paranoia from his under-cover operations kicking in. _He was interesting._

He hits post.

Then he shuts the laptop with a huff.

“This is ridiculous. I'll _find_ something to do.”

Digging through the desk drawer, he fishes out the pamphlet the hospital doctor gave him and pages through it. _Veteran Aid_ pops out at him almost immediately, and he takes in the address, committing it to memory. He puts it back in the drawer, places his laptop on top, and slides the drawer shut.

With his jacket and cane in hand, he locks the door and leaves feeling as though he's on a mission.

 _A mission for sanity?_ he wonders. _Or for excitement?_

For the first time since being released from hospital, John feels trapped in London. His simple, small, _normal_ persona chafes at him and restricts him in the worst ways. Despite his persistent limp, he finds himself slipping effortlessly into a soundless stalk. He hears all and sees all. A pickpocket gets away cleanly, a drug dealer makes a deal as he passes, his senses shoot out in all directions and overwhelm him with too much information.

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

He stops dead, shakes his head, and shoves himself back into his persona. He is mousey John Watson. He likes knitted sweaters and tea. He walks slowly and stiffly. He smiles reluctantly and rarely with humor.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

 _“It's easier to believe that I am normal,”_ he remembers saying, _“Than it is to pretend that I am.”_

He brushes the thought to the side and continues on his journey to the shelter. All he can do is take things one step at a time.

~~

“You'd like to volunteer?”

John nods and the supervisor folds his hands on his desk in his tiny little office. _Converted cupboard,_ John thinks automatically before tucking the darting thought away.

“Why?” the man asks bluntly.

“I'm invalided on pension with nothing to do.”

“Pension's rubbish.”

John smiles. “Yes, but I have no place here.” He swallows, allowing a true thought to come out of his mouth. “I'd like to find one.”

The man nods decisively. “Then we'll see what we can do.” He stands and John does also, ignoring the automatic glance to his cane. “Come on, you can help serve at lunch.”

~~

 _I've been to the kitchen,_ John writes that night. _The kitchen for veterans, I mean. Some of us are really badly off._

~~

On a break, John sits at an empty table at the soup kitchen eating his own lunch. Only years of self-discipline keep him from looking at the person who sits next to him with his peripheral vision.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal,_ his heart beats.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John swallows a sigh.

“Was it my disability or my blog that led you here?” John asks, immediately berating himself for letting that slip out. He straightens and glances at Sherlock.

The man is smiling toothlessly, thin lips stretched tight. “Both.”

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

“What do you mean, Afghanistan or Iraq?” John murmurs around his cold and gummy lasagna.

“Don't be stupid,” Sherlock says derisively. “It doesn't suit you.”

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

John shoves his perception down deep, restricting himself. He swallows and shakes his head. “I honestly have no idea how you reached those conclusions.”

Sherlock watches him for several moments, searching for some sort of sign, then sighs. “Maybe I was wrong,” he murmurs. “You must just have intellectual spikes occasionally...” He stands, pushing the chair away, its legs shrieking against the floor, and turns to leave. Pausing, he looks back. “For a moment, I thought I saw...” he shakes his head. “You could have been brilliant.”

Then he departs.

~~

John doesn't return to the kitchen.

~~

 _I found somewhere else to go,_ John posts next. _The kitchen didn't work out for me._

 _Normal. Not normal. Normal. Not normal,_ his heart thumps erratically.

John prides himself on telling the truth, or telling the truth as he believes it, but his post is nearly a lie. He hasn't actually found another place to go, but he can't go back there. He just can't. Visions of the veterans haunt him, not because he could have been like them: but because he never will be.

He won't spook at loud sounds, wallow in alcohol, flash-back to terrifying moments, or slip into a depression thanks to the horrors he saw. He _enjoyed_ all of the things that those people now regret, now fear. He is nothing like them.

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

He misses it. He's pretending to be normal and he knows it. When he leaves for the day to wander the city, hated cane in hand, it is getting harder and harder to shove his perceptions into a John Watson shape.

 _“You could have been brilliant.”_

His instincts rail against his self-made cage in fury, raging to be released. He remembers fitting comfortably in his form. He remembers chopping off someone's head with a machete one day, and treating someone's injury as the mild and meek medic the next. He remembers having both personae be true, be real, be easy.

He fights against himself daily, now.

When a pick-pocket darts by him with a handbag, he reaches out to grab it, then lets his hand fall. He walks away without looking back.

He gets shoved in a crowd, wants to shove back, and lets himself fall.

He feels himself being watched and shoves it away, ignoring it furiously.

 _Normal. Not normal. Normal. Not normal._

He doesn't know what to believe anymore.

~~

 **IMPORTANT** , the most recent email from his sister Harry says.

He opens it.

 **  
_We need to meet. Thursday. 1 pm. Debenham's cafe._   
**

**  
_\--Harry._   
**

John sighs.

 _Might as well._

~~

“Tea, please,” John says, smiling at the waitress as she takes the menu from his steady right hand.

 _Single. Straight. Mother. Two kids. Saving for—_

He shakes his head and turns to Harry.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

She peers at him, confused. “You seem...smaller. Mild.” She tilts her head, like a bird, and gazes at him curiously. “Are you alright?”

“PTSD,” he says promptly. “Thank you,” he accepts his tea from the waitress and watches her as she saunters off.

 _I don't want her. But I could have her._

“I...don't think so,” Harry says slowly.

John sips his tea. “Got a doctor's note and everything.”

She frowns. “I've been reading your blog. It's unlike you to be so unobservant,” she asserts, reaching across the table and laying her hand on his.

He lifts his tea with his left hand and inhales the pungent steam.

 _Normal. Normal. Normal._

She heaves a sigh. “Look. You've always been good at it. Balancing, I mean. At eight you were reading The Art of War and charming your teachers with your modesty at the same time. You were careful who saw what, but not afraid to be who you are.”

“I'm not—”

“You've not got PTSD,” she snaps. “You've got denial. Do you think you should be lost here? Do you think it's your duty to be broken? It's all right, brother.” She pats his hand. “You're brilliant _and_ normal. Please allow yourself to be both.”

He's not breathing. He's not thinking. He can't breathe. He can't think.

She pats his hand and drains her tea, standing to leave. “I love you, little brother. YOU.”

 _Not normal. Not normal. Not normal._

~~

The man next door is contemplating suicide. John knows this, and tells the manager just in time for the man to break into the bedsit and find his neighbor attempting to slit his wrists.

John accepts his reduced rent gracefully and sends the man a card at the hospital.

He doesn't get a thank you note, but he knows the sentiment is there.

~~

 _People move in and out everyday._ John posts in the aftermath. _This place is a hall full of wardrobes with kitchenettes. The only other place I can think of that drives blokes to suicide is an office with tiny little cubicles._

 _The man in the flat next door tried to off himself. The manager and I stopped him in time._

 _It's quiet without him crying every night._

~~

 **  
_John,_   
**

**  
_Are you okay? What happened? How did you know? You worry me, little brother. But I'm glad you're writing more._   
**

**  
_\--Harry_   
**

~~

 **  
_John,_   
**

**  
_I'm glad you wrote more than a one liner, but could you possibly write more about yourself? What you feel?_   
**

**_Dr. Edwards_**  
~~

 **  
_John,_   
**

**  
_How have you been faring? It's been a long time since we last met. Perhaps we should do so soon. I'd like to hear how you are adjusting to being back in England, your blog is frustratingly lacking in information. I hope you don't believe I've hung you out to dry. I'll let you know when is most convenient for us to meet._   
**

**  
_Yours, M_   
**

~~

 **  
_Everything is fine. Just fine._   
**

~~

 **  
_Dr. Edwards,_   
**

**  
_Don't push it._   
**

~~

 **  
_Harry,_   
**

**  
_Love you too._   
**

~~

John wakes suddenly, but not from a nightmare. The room is still, calm, and his body tenses with anticipation, waiting for a sign of what woke him.

He sits up abruptly. _There._

A scream.

And not from inside the building.

He throws back the duvet, jams his bare feet into his shoes, and stumbles for the desk and his trusty Browning. Glad for his habit of wearing pyjamas to bed, John shrugs on his jacket and assuredly clears his gun. The slide and click of the mechanism rings out clearly in the small room, and the bullet popping into the chamber electrifies his nerves. Hair stands up on the back of his neck, but he's...fine.

Just fine.

He bares his teeth in a pantomime of a smile, tucks the loaded gun in his pocket, and stalks for the door.

The hall is dim in an attempt for the cheap flat-owners to save money, but John has no difficulty trotting the length of it. A scream rings out again and John pads down the stairs, breath puffing rhythmically. He bangs out the emergency door, certain that the alarm isn't actually set (it's not) and barrels down the alley.

“Please!” a woman cries out. “Not my son!”

The resulting bark of a man's voice is nearly wordless, but spurs John on faster regardless. He slows when he approaches the corner of the alley, listens, then boldly strides onwards. Hand in his pockets, whistling, he waltzes along as though nothing is wrong. It takes everything he is to shove down his anger at the woman's desperate sobs.

“What the fuck?”

John looks up, as though he's just spotted the scene, and greets the man who has a gun pointed at the wriggling child pinned in his arms.

“Evening,” John greets, slowing not a whit.

 _Boy is ten. Tall for his age. Fatherless. All his mother has left. Mugger. Frustrated. Can't pay his bills. Hand is shaking. Never fired a gun at a person before. Has a kid the same age._

“Shoot me,” the woman begs. “I haven't any money, but shoot me instead!”

“Don't you come any closer!” the man warns John.

John assesses things, stops, and raises his hands to where they can be seen. “Is there a problem here?”

The woman is crying and the boy's eyes are wide in the dark alley, staring at John with what looks like hope. Very faintly, John can hear the wail of sirens, and shifts from side to side, scuffing his feet as a distraction.

“This isn't any of your business,” the man asserts. The gun shakes wildly in his hand so he presses it firmly against the boy's head. The woman gasps, hiccuping past her sobs, and the mugger clutches the boy closer.

“Is it his, either?” John gestures expansively. “Let's handle this. Just you and me. What do you say?”

John takes a step forward and the man's arm jerks up so suddenly a bullet strikes the ground at his feet. It's loud, and the bullet cracks against the building next to John on its rebound, but the ex-soldier only stills.

“Don't move!” the man shrieks.

“I've got money,” John replies. “She doesn't.” He cocks his head. “Let the boy go. Let her have him. You want my wallet?”

The man nods jerkily, unsteady arm swinging through the air as he struggles to aim at John.

“You can have it,” John soothes. “Just let her have the boy.”

He lets go and the kid falls to hands and knees, tears dripping on the ground. The mugger's other hand joins the first on his pistol, but steadies it very little.

“Come here slowly!” his voice cracks as John moves and jumps sharply upward in register. “Slowly!” he repeats shrilly.

John strides ahead blithely and the man shoots wildly again, two bullets hitting a rubbish bin.

“Shit!” John hears from the road, and he knows the police have arrived.

“I'll shoot the kid!” the man threatens.

Two shots ring out and it's over.

“Police!”

Two policemen trot around the corner, guns in hand, and John turns to gaze at them solemnly.

“Hullo,” he greets them. “Nice of you to show up.”

The mugger moans from the ground.

John clears his gun, pops out the magazine, stoops, and places both parts of the Browning on the ground.

One policeman approaches him, scooping up the gun, and the other skirts him to approach the mugger.

“You're under arrest for...”

“No!” the woman cries out.

John and the policeman turn to look at her. She is crouched on the ground, her arms around the sobbing boy.

His cries echo in the night.

“He saved us!”

The policeman looks John up and down, taking in his pyjamas dubiously.

“He came out of nowhere when the mugger threatened to shoot my son!”

John shrugs modestly, ignoring the police's look of disbelief. “I heard her scream. Anyone would've done it.”

There's a long pause where the only sound is the other policeman reading the mugger his rights and cuffing his hands in front of him as he moans in pain.

“Well,” the bobby scratches the back of his head and looks away. “We'll have to bring you in to take your statement anyway.”

“Fair enough,” John replies. “The two of you enough for all six of us? To me your car might be a bit cramped.”

The office flushes. “Well, uh.” He coughs and turns away. “Right then, I'll be back.”

An ambulance arrives for the would-be mugger, another car for the woman and her child, and the two original policeman are left to “escort” John to the Yard. He rather thinks that he doesn't have a choice in this, suspicion still hanging above his head, but he doesn't mind humouring the police. They're good chaps, mostly.

~~

The two policemen flank him through the halls, surprisingly busy with people for the wee hours of the morning.

“Who's that, Cohen?” someone calls out.

“Witness,” Cohen, the man on John's left replies. “Mugging. Took the bugger on.”

“Good on you, mate,” he strides for them quickly, so they slow to a standstill. He's practically vibrating with excitement. “Have you heard?” he demands, clutching his paperwork in hands that unknowingly bend and crumple the sheets. His hair is mussed on one side like he was woken in the night, his lapel askew, and a shoelace untied.

John blinks and drags his eyes up to the man's face, unconsciously slipping into parade rest in this foreign environment.

“Nah, Foulkes,” Cohen says. “Patel and I've been on the beat.”

“What's all the racket about?” Cohen's partner, Patel, chimes in.

“It's that Holmes chap again!” bursts out of Foulkes' mouth.

“Sod it all,” Cohen swears. “What's he done this time?”

“He's found that guy that done and caused all those suicides.”

“You're taking the mick.”

“Swear on my mother's life. It was a blimmin' cabbie. Din't you learn from the Black Cab Rapist?(3)”

“Bollocks.”

“Ahem.” John clears his throat and all three men turn to look at him like guilty children caught gossiping. “I could be persuaded,” he prompts, “To forget that I'm out in my pyjamas if you said who Holmes was, exactly.”

“Well, he's that 'Consulting Detective', innit?”

“Consulting Detective?” John says dubiously. “Don't you mean Private Detective?”

“Created a new job, that one did,” Patel remarks.

“Yeah,” Cohen agrees. “He's barking, and he–.”

 _Sherlock Holmes. His name is Sherlock Holmes._

 _“Maybe I was wrong,” he murmurs. “You must just have intellectual spikes occasionally.”_

“He's here?” John interrupts. “Sherlock Holmes is here?”

 _“You, John Watson, are a man in whom I have a great amount of faith.”_

Like puzzle pieces slipping magically into slots, John fits together things he never thought to worry about before. Unique eyes. Intensity. Brilliant intelligence. Posh accent. Expensive clothing.

“Well, yeah—”

“I've got to see him.” John strides forward and all three men mob after him.

“See here, mate,” Cohen objects. “You don't need him. You're innocent. Leave off, he's trouble.”

 _“You could have been brilliant.”_

John's peripherally aware that he's tearing through the halls of an unfamiliar building without his cane and without any knowledge of the building's layout. But he doesn't care. He doesn't care.

 _Lestrade. Detective Inspector Lestrade. Special division. Sherlock's handler? Murders. He does murders. SCD._

When he spots a directory, he slides to a stop and glances at it before picking a hall and trotting along it.

 _SCD. SCD. SCD._

 ** _Lestrade_** , a nameplate leaps out at him. He skids to a stop, breathing heavily, just as two men, bickering without heat, round the corner ahead of him.

“You're a right idiot,” the silver-haired detective berates fondly.

“Nonsense,” Sherlock pronounces with a smile. “I knew I picked the right one.”

“You know no such thing,” Lestrade chides with a frown. “We haven't gotten the labs back yet.”

“I am almost positive—”

“That's right. 'Almost.' You're damn lucky I barged in then, making him choke like that. If not, you'd be dead and I would see your smug—”

“Lestrade,” Sherlock extends an arm and stops Lestrade, flicking his all-seeing gaze up and and down John's form.

He's well aware that he looks a sight: Pyjama trousers and shirt, ill-fitting coat, scuffed shoes, ruddy face, uneven breath, and three bobbies running up behind him.

“See here, mate,” Cohen huffs.

“You can't just dash off like that,” Patel finishes.

“Both!” John bursts out, bouncing in place for a moment then settling back on his heels, straightening his spine, and meeting the gray-eyed man's gaze dead on. “Both are correct.”

Sherlock's eyes flash, brightening with interest. Surprise, joy, and the glint of a challenge shine for one brief instant. He opens his mouth to say something, but all of John's conclusions burst forward out of him in a rush, an unstoppable force.

“You've been to neither.”

“Of course I—”

“But your brother has. His cufflinks said MH, which I never thought about, but he has an unusual first name, an acute sense of what is fashionable and what is not, a curious and ever suspicious mind, an eye for details, and an undaunted love for you.”

“Your deductions up until the last are things that even the greatest idiot could have—”

“He gave you that scarf. Your only scarf. You were raised well but shun your family's money so you wear it out of practicality, and because you like it. He bought the coat too, but although it's also your only one you wouldn't wear it unless you cared greatly for him, no matter how much you protest. Your shoes are several years out of fashion, you won't buy a new pair until your repairs cease to hold, the heel is coming loose by the way, your jeans are a blatant fuck off to the fashion and decorum you were raised to wear diligently, so you wouldn't wear anything so swanky unless it had emotional value. Although you rebel, you secretly adore looking good and look forward to gifts from the brother you publicly resent. I know he loves you because when he told me he'd help me find a purpose I could tell—”

 _I could tell he was also thinking about someone else dear to him._

Sherlock, the arrogant man, stands blank-faced and unmoving. The three men behind John shift nervously, but John stands sternly firm, taking Sherlock's stony stare and tossing it back at him with his true integrity.

Lestrade looks at him, looks at Sherlock, then takes John in with blatant disbelief.

“Well, I'll be, Sherlock,” he exclaims. “He's a regular mini—”

“Brilliant,” Sherlock smiles widely, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

John rocks back a bit, expecting a snappy retort, an arrogant dismissal, anything but this enthusiasm.

“Really?” he asks in disbelief. “That's not what I expected you to say.”

“What did you expect?” He swoops forward, coat flapping and curly hair drifting.

“Piss off.”

Sherlock laughs and John smiles in return. The tall scarecrow reaches forward, intent clearly telegraphed, and clasps John's hand.

“Pleasure to meet you, Dr. John Watson.” Sherlock's rough palm catches on his, little electrical sparks of friction shooting up his arm and spine. The grip is warm and strong. A daring thumb darts across the back of his hand, sending his hair standing in reaction. Sherlock raises an eyebrow, still gazing at him warmly. For a socially inept man, anyway. “Sorry. Not left handed, you see.”

John grins. “I won't hold it against you.”

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asks.

“Well, you see...” John bashfully raises a hand to ruffle his hair, releasing Sherlock's hand in the process. “I shot a mugger.”

“I see,” Sherlock says, with a quirk of his lips that could almost be interpreted as teasing.

“In my defense, he shot first.” John pauses. “But I didn't miss.”

“I'm sure you didn't.”

The stand in silence for a moment, before Sherlock turns to Lestrade with a querying air. “Detective Inspector, surely John doesn't need to be here right now. It's awfully late.”

“Quite early, actually,” John interjects, flicking his gaze down at his pyjamas.

Sherlock nods, “Quite right. Positively indecent to detain a man before he's gotten his proper rest.”

“Indecent,” John agrees shamelessly, enjoying the smirk Sherlock shoots his way. “Before any proper food, as well.”

Sherlock just stares at Lestrade in barely concealed expectation.

The Detective Inspector eyes John suspiciously. “He'd come back in the morning to give his statement?”

“My good man,” Sherlock assures him with what John assumes to be a perfectly crafted fake smile. “I think you'll find that the good doctor is a man of excellent character and has been very cooperative with the Met of late, haven't you, John?”

“Oh yes. Gone quite out of my way, I have.” He feels giddy, an unusual feeling that he revels in, bouncing on his heels like a small child.

Lestrade rolls his eyes, ignoring the positively quivering policemen standing behind John. “Very well, you two can hare off wherever it is you find so important to get to.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Patel? Make sure they get to the door. And out it, if you will.” He frowns, scowling, and mutters under his breath, “Bad enough when Sherlock's loose in the building, who knows what'd happen if he had an accomplice.”

Sherlock whirls to John. “Ready?”

John gestures at his clothing. “Not for an opera, I expect, but just about anything else will do nicely.”

Sherlock smiles again, and this time John can see a corresponding sparkle in his gray eyes. “How does Chinese sound?”

“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

They turn and walk down the hall together, shoulders bumping amiably.

“Perfect.” Sherlock sniffs. “Oh, John, how do you feel about the violin?”

“I love it.”

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. “On the contrary, Doctor”, “Do you understand?”, “Yes, I understand perfectly”  
> 2\. “next to of course god America i” by E.E. Cummings  
> 3\. The Black Cab Rapist was John Worboys, a serial cabby rapist recently convicted in London. Look him up, he's got his own Wikipedia :)


End file.
